Recently I visited an old friend, and as we visited, I sensed she had a little dissatisfaction in her life. We ran out of privacy to talk before I had to leave but her struggles weighed on my heart. So, I decided to write her a letter. Without revealing the identity of my friend, I would like to share with you today the letter I sent her. Maybe you will find it helpful to you as well.

Hello my dear friend,

It was really good to see you and your family, even just for a quick overnight. And, I love your new little doggie. He's so cute!

Please excuse the seeming-impersonal typing. My handwriting is quite terrible so I usually type longer notes and letters. I wanted to send a note because I wish we would have had more time to visit one-on-one. My heart was a bit heavy reflecting on your comment that you sometimes get a little depressed, now that you are retired. I recently heard a lecture about finding happiness and I wanted to share with you a little of what I learned. It might sound strange, but the speaker used a diagram to illustrate how to evaluate our level of happiness. I am including the diagram in this letter. And, I'll explain the gist of the meaning of the diagram. The vertical side of the diagram is used to chart how much of a "challenge" we find a given activity to be. The horizontal side of the diagram is used to chart our "skill level" as it pertains to an activity. For instance, if we are doing something really challenging, but we don't feel very skilled at it, we will have anxiety or stress. (For instance, me and sewing. It causes me great anxiety because I find it to be a very challenging activity, and one in which I am not skilled.) If the challenge level is low, but our skill level is high, then that will probably be relaxing. For me that might be watching football - it is not a challenge because I am not actually participating in the game, and my knowledge of the game is high, which equates to skill level, therefore watching football is a relaxing activity to me. The speaker (who is a psychologist from Hungary) suggests that the quadrant in which we will find our happiest state of being is that one labeled "Flow", where the challenge is high, AND our skill level is also high.

I found the concept to be quite interesting, and probably there is a lot of truth to his idea. I just wanted to share this with you. Maybe as you ponder things that fill your days, this will help you discern what types of things might contribute to a higher level of satisfaction more often.

I hope you don't mind me sharing this. I know you didn't ask for my thoughts and I don't normally share my thoughts unless someone asks. But, since we never had another opportunity for me to inquire further, I decided to just write anyway.

Hello friends,If you have been reading my blog for a while, the title of this post might not surprise you. But that's not to say the title won't make you go, "Say what??"Just briefly, a single horizontal tillage pass is when a cultivation tool is used in a field in such a manner that several layers of soil are disturbed, and in a manner that affects those layers horizontally. (You may have to take a moment to visualize what I am describing.)Okay, so then what is significant about "a single horizontal tillage pass"? Well, recently a report was published with this title - "Study finds a single horizontal tillage pass significantly reduced water infiltration", water infiltration meaning the amount of water that penetrates the soil and gets to where crops need it, in the layers beneath the ground.So, today's post is about one of Growing Hope's favorite banner topics - no-till. And, I f you are so inclined to read the entire study, which has many more details than I am going to cite here, the article can be found online by searching the following: "It doesn't take much to ruin no-till." The article is dated Sept. 24, 2016, on the agweb.com website. For my purposes today, I am merely going to share with you the general findings of the study, which are really rather amazing.First of all, something you certainly already know - the amount of rainfall, and the soil's water-holding capacity, are two of the main factors that impact crop yield. Rain needs to get to the crop's root zone. If it can't get there, it will negatively impact the yield of the crop. This is why water infiltration is critical.The place where the study was conducted had an average rainfall over the last 30 years of 24.28". They then concluded that if the soil's infiltration rate is 3" per hour, the soil can capture 75% of that annual rainfall. But, if a soil layer, that has been created through horizontal tillage, restricts the soil's ability to absorb that rainfall, and the infiltration rate drops to a little less than 2" per hour, then less than 50% of that annual rainfall is utilized by the crop.The difference in the amount of water that infiltrates the soil is around 6.8" of water for the crop. Do you want to know what difference that can mean for yields? Sixty bushels of corn per acre. Gulp! That is crazy!!As for the rain that does not penetrate the soil, you know where that goes, right? Into the drainage ditch; beautiful topsoil washing down to the Gulf of Mexico.Do we seem biased about no-till? I guess it's findings such as this which keep convincing us that it's the right way to go.Have a great day, my friends!Julie